


Guide

by Aisu



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Narrator Chara, POV Second Person, Short One Shot, Spoilers - Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5956465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisu/pseuds/Aisu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first, you were so confused. But maybe there's someone who can help you figure out why you're here after all. Very short, exploring the early moments of the game from another perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guide

You feel disoriented, still, like you’ve woken from a too-long nap. There’s a haze through your mind, a confusion. You’re not in your own body, you can tell that much. You feel shorter and sturdier and different - and you aren’t the one moving at all. Something, someone else picks themselves up from the flower bed and brushes away the petals. Someone else walks down the hall.

You take the time to try to piece together your thoughts. There had been the plan (the burn in your throat, on your hands, in your belly, then - something like this, watching from different eyes as Asriel stepped forward and–)

“Howdy!” a voice calls out from the dark. The body you’re in stops, hesitates.

For a moment, you wonder. It’s too high, too cartoonish, but the word is right. You almost feel the first syllable of his name at the back of a throat that isn't yours.

But what emerges from the dark is a flower, a smiling flower, and it’s almost comical as it starts to talk. You pull yourself back again. Not him.

You watch, still muddled and detached, as the flower makes promises of help. You barely even react when it abruptly shifts to attacking. This is all starting to feel like a dream, and you’re not sure you care what happens in it.

Then.

Then.

Familiar pale-blue flame and a familiar voice and before you can stop yourself you’re trying to surge forward, because it’s her, Toriel, mom, _mom_ , and all your anger is forgotten as you try to tell her you're back.

You can’t make it. The body you’re in doesn’t move for all your attempts. And Toriel turns and walks away, glancing back to make sure that you are - your body is following.

You feel a momentary edge of hate. At the useless not-you body you're in. At your mother, not even realizing you're there. At everything.

It doesn’t last long.

 _Um_ , comes a thought, and it’s not yours, you can tell. The cadence is wrong, the edges too uncertain. It's almost more images than words. _Hello?_

You’d blink, if you had control of your eyes. _Greetings,_ you think back, pushing the thought forward.

And then there’s a bubble of thoughts and sensations - fear and pain and hurt, recent and still aching and you catch a glimpse of why the body you’re in climbed the mountain and your own memories resonate and it hurts you both, pulsing through, and they are scared to be alone and scared to follow Toriel (mom, you overlap) and they are so, so scared and they can feel you but they don’t know what you want or what you mean but–

– _but you seem scared too, and maybe we'd be less scared together._

You take a few moments to let it all process and settle in, and then you manage something like a mental smile. _You’re a crybaby,_ you tell them, and you mean it almost fondly. _But alright. I will help to guide you, as best I can. I’ve been here before._ You’re mixing formality and informality - nerves, confusion - but they don’t seem to notice.

They smile, for real. _Thank you…_

 _Chara,_ you tell them.

 _Frisk,_ they answer.

You nod, taking in the name.

 _Go on and follow Toriel,_ you tell them, and they start to walk.

There is still an edge of hurt and pain and fear in the back of your mind that you bury, hold back with you, away from Frisk. The memory of (his betrayal? his cowardice? your failure?) your death is still with you. You hurt, and you hurt, and you hurt.

But for the moment, you guide Frisk on.

Maybe they won’t have to hurt too.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to mostlyv0id-partiallystars on tumblr for the prompt!
> 
> and thanks to, like, everyone involved in the Narrator Chara theory!


End file.
